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Miss E. Knows

Collage style painting on glass, purple figure with large nose.
© Jim Nutt

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  • Collage style painting on glass, purple figure with large nose.

Date:

1967

Artist:

Jim Nutt
American, born 1938

About this artwork

In early paintings such as this one, Jim Nutt referenced popular culture, particularly painted store windows and pinball machines, through his choice of medium and support: acrylic paint on Plexiglas. In addition, many elements relate to the comic-strip style of hard, crisp forms standing out boldly against simple backgrounds. In Miss E. Knows, Nutt also used a sequential format, incorporating small framed images in the upper-left corner of the painting. The work’s central subject is a grotesquely imagined, highly sexualized female figure—the artist’s satire of ideal beauty.

Nutt is a principal member of the Hairy Who, an irreverent group of artists who began exhibiting together in Chicago during the late 1960s. Their Surrealist-inspired work aimed at subverting artistic conventions and standards of taste, and they became known as part of the Chicago Imagist movement.

Status

On View, Gallery 289

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Jim Nutt

Title

Miss E. Knows

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1967

Medium

Acrylic on Plexiglas with aluminum and rubber; in artist's painted frame

Dimensions

192.1 × 131.1 cm (75 5/8 × 51 5/8 in.)

Credit Line

Twentieth-Century Purchase Fund

Reference Number

1970.1014

Copyright

© Jim Nutt

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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